The Roles They Assume
by kurushi
Summary: Set a few years after the manga.  Ren stars opposite Kyoko, and his experiences threaten his self-image and his acting career.


_Disclaimer: __All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended._

_Notes: Written for Yasuhei 2010. This is the second Skip Beat fic I've written, and both have been for Yasuhei. I never thought I could write characters like these, and never would have if he didn't love the idea of them so much. I owe him one, for expanding my horizons a little further._

**The Roles They Assume**

Tsuruga Ren had had tough jobs before. Cain Heel, for one. When he was younger, he'd had some roles that he would find quite easy now, but at the time had posed staggering difficulties. He'd been young, he'd been a bit typecast at times, and he'd never been in love. Not in the way that it counted. It stood to reason that now he'd moved past some of his weaknesses and nervous tics that it was no longer an absence of love that spelled his downfall, but the presence of it. More precisely, the presence of a fluttering breath-taken feeling in his gut every time his eyes met those of Mogami Kyoko.

She leaned forwards over the table – they were at the first meeting of the cast for the film – and ran her fingers along one of the lines of the script.

'I was a bit worried that I won't be able to pull off this girl,' Kyoko confided in him, 'but I know I'll be fine with you at my side.'

Ren frowned down at the line she was focussed on. It wasn't a line so much as it was a swooning sigh. It was a bit ludicrous, but in the end smitten romances tended to sell well and please the audience. 'I'm glad,' Ren said, honestly a bit warm in the cheeks and heart from the unexpected compliment, 'but what makes you say that?'

He was flirting, if he was honest with himself. Maybe a bit too eager to be playing romantic lead opposite his close friend and the object of his romantic fixation. Maybe that was why he felt so shocked and dissociative when she answered him in all seriousness.

'I mean, like that time years ago when I was still green and I hurt my ankle? When I did the tea ceremony, and I realised that I couldn't help but react to you. It's industry knowledge, that all actresses when placed on a stage with Tsuruga Ren will be immediately in his thrall. I've worked so hard to become someone like that myself, you know...'

'You mean, a ladies' man?' He'd let that slip out before he realised. He wished he hadn't. There was something about Kyoko that just made him feel like a twelve year old boy at times, all awkward and devoid of charm or hope.

'What? No! I meant the power of acting, the strength of your characters! The... the potency. But today I don't care about that at all, I'm just glad that when you get into the role you'll draw me in too. If I'd been cast opposite anyone else, I don't think I'd have been able to ooze sap like this girl's supposed to.'

'Woman.' Ren reminded her as everyone shuffled their scripts and notes into tidy piles and the chatter began to peter out.

'Pardon?'

'Your character isn't in high school like you usually play, Kyoko. She's a young woman just out of University.'

Kyoko had the grace to blush and look a little ashamed, though Ren could see the steely stubborn resolution in her eyes. 'I _was_ at the auditions, you know, Mr. Big-name Actor.'

'Well Mrs. Big-name Actress, then, shh.'

Ren couldn't say for sure what happened in the meeting. Probably the usual pre-filming stuff, technical details and rousing empowering and hopeful promises that everyone would forget when they were a week over schedule and exhausted beyond belief. He didn't even know if he'd been his usual agreeable self, because he was too busy being stuck in that little space inside his head that was always Ren, no matter what role he was playing.

It was the part that missed his mother, answered to the name 'Kuon', and thought that the cheap plastic rings you got from vending machines were just as sparkly and pretty as the jewels they mimicked.

Kyoko had said that it was industry known fact that all women who appeared opposite Ren were in his thrall. She'd said, 'Like that time years ago,' meaning that day when she'd performed tea ceremony in the garden, dressed up like a traditional lord's daughter. All right, and he'd known at the time that he'd been affecting her, because he was a good actor and he paid attention to the others on set, both their personae and their underlying selves – it was a good way to get the right reactions, after all – but for all that was holy... she'd just said it out loud.

Ren swallowed a sip of water a little too hard, and smiled through the pain as he nodded goodbye to everyone at the end of the afternoon. That morning, he'd had hopeful plans to ask Kyoko out for coffee and to read-through the tougher scenes. But that was certainly right out. Ren felt awkward and shaky, and a little bit elated, and when he saw Yashiro waiting in the foyer he strode over. It was easier to pretend to be too busy to talk, than to face Kyoko when he felt so off-centre. He didn't feel his usual cool collected self at all. Then again, he hadn't felt very collected near Kyoko for years.

Why couldn't he feel like the dashing and brave prince-like figure that she'd seen him as, when they were kids? Ren ignored the confused smile on Yashiro's face and settled down into his car, wishing for perhaps the tenth time that he didn't have such a stupid romanticised view of love. It was nearly impossible to maintain any sense of professionalism with this role, and he knew he should have passed it up the second he knew Kyoko had been cast. He'd get too involved, lose his composure, he was risking a lot. He should have turned it down, but he'd run into Kyoko in L.M.E.'s hallways, seen her excited smile, and there was no way he could turn the role down.

Ren sucked in a breath through his teeth. He just needed a few days to compose himself, and he had the weekend. By the time he showed up to the practice runs, he'd be in control, and fine. He promised himself.

When Monday and the run-through with the script came, he'd had two days sulking and moping and thinking, and it was a little disappointing how collected and prepared he felt. He hadn't liked the idea of losing control of himself or his acting, but he'd grown used to the idea that being near Kyoko just _did_ things to him. It felt wrong to be so calm inside.

But he was, and they made their way through the script smoothly. Like any other production, time flew and dragged and so after a hundred thousand years and no time at all they were done with the measuring of costumes and make-up technique refinements and screen tests, and Ren was leaning over Kyoko – no, over Hiromi – and watching her intently. Kyoko was good at this role. Hiromi was a stubbornly independent young woman with little experience in real sexual situations. If Kyoko hadn't played princesses and hags and countless teenage girls in the past, Ren might have suspected she'd been typecast.

Hiromi had a deliberate and stern look in her eyes as she met Ren's – Ryousuke's – own, but her arms were trembling where they brushed up against his own and there was a faint hint of a blush on her cheeks. Ren got the feeling that if Hiromi hadn't been so independent and indignant, she'd be bright red all over, and that made the atmosphere even headier.

There was a power and responsibility that bled through any scene like this; female actresses were often a bit more vulnerable in films like this, expected to take the submissive role. But this was worse. Ren couldn't be Ryousuke right then, and he couldn't see Hiromi in Kyoko's face. He'd fucked up, and he was braced above the body of the woman he loved with his shirt undone and her eyebrows furrowing in frustration.

He was supposed to be seducing her. They'd practised it just fine, in the past. Hell, in the previous takes. He could tell that Kyoko was beginning to worry, but she didn't fall out of her role. She blushed darker, and lifted her arms. Her right arm bumped accidentally and clumsily against Ren's left, and her fingers felt shivering timid on his cheeks, but as she drew him down towards her, she held his gaze.

Her eyes weren't romantic or sweet, but furious. Not hateful or passionate, but intense in a way that Ren couldn't measure or hope to understand. He was just Ren, and she was in-character as Hiromi and thinking she was craning her neck upwards to kiss Ryousuke. Her skin felt soft and sweet where his nose pressed up against hers, and he didn't think he'd ever be able to let her go. He certainly wouldn't be able to pull away and finish the dialogue of the scene.

'Cut, CUT!'

The director, whose name fled Ren's mind entirely at the time, ran over excited and yelling. It was enough to break the moment. Ren wasn't feeling steady enough on his arms to push back up off Kyoko, so he did his best to flop to one side of her on the floor without jostling her.

Kyoko laughed with exhilaration, and sat up to smile broadly at the director. 'Sorry, we improvised a bit there.'

The director would have none of it, as it turned out. 'Oh no, not at all! I can see now why they recommended you, though you haven't done many romantic roles. Your rapport with Ren even when in character... this is maybe the most intense scene he's ever filmed. But we'll have to change some of the cameras and lighting, I don't think it's best suited to the dynamic anymore...'

The director went on about things like intensity and really showing Hiromi's personal emotional struggles during the scene, while Ren just lay there and stared up at the scaffolding and wires that hung in the air above them. He'd thought he was doomed that first day, but now? Now was worse. Kyoko had said that she'd be all right, because women couldn't help but react when opposite the famous Tsuruga Ren. But Ren couldn't help but react when Kyoko was around, and worst of all it didn't even keep him in character.

'...right, Ren?' Kyoko was asking him something with a friendly smile in her voice, and he had no idea what she'd said.

'Huh?' Ren couldn't have been less debonair if he'd tried. He sat up on his elbows and tried to gather his composure.

'Aha, I can see that you're dazed in the wake of Kyoko's skills. I think we all are, she's really... on your level. Kyoko, I don't know why you haven't done this kind of role before. But you must promise me you'll consider working with me again in the future!'

The conversation seemed to be doing just fine without him, so Ren let his head flop back down against the floor.

That... actually wasn't the worst of it. He'd thought it was just the start of the worst, but somehow he survived filming and all the promotional photo-shoots and work. Though draping himself over Kyoko in tight attractive clothing and posing for cameras while people told them where to place their hands had been surreal and torturous, it had nothing on what came next.

He'd already had his next job lined up. He was going to revisit a long-running drama he'd been on for a few months once, and have a few scenes with his character's past love interest. He also got to die, and before he'd taken on the role of Ryousuke he'd thought it sounded like fun. Fun enough to be worth the low pay-check, and it would be good to see some old acquaintances anyway.

Dressed up in a stuffy suit and made up heavily, the kiss goodbye on-screen felt cold and greasy like the exact antithesis of his kisses with Kyoko. All industry tricks with lipstick and lighting. The histrionics of the characters wasn't helping. He got through by overacting, like everyone did on that show, but he'd never felt so detached from any role in his entire life. He was dead inside.

It was like Kyoko had reached her hand into his chest, rummaged around in there until she found all the love and hope in his chest, and pulled until he was inside out. Exposed to the world, and now he couldn't think or talk himself into the role. Couldn't feel a damned thing.

The recording looked fine, and everyone was pleased. But after the nice lunch and catch-up and promises to meet sometime, Ren sagged into his car seat and met Yashiro's eyes.

'Are you okay, Ren?'

'I won't be doing any more romantic roles. Never again.'

Yashiro frowned. 'Well, you do tend to get typecast, I can see that you might be getting tired, but those roles really work for you, and...'

'They aren't working anymore.' Ren's voice felt flat and empty and alien in his own mouth.

Ren turned to look out at the car park, gathering himself for the drive home. Yashiro looked at him in the rear-vision mirror, and frowned at what he saw there.

'Right. I'll review your commitments for the rest of the year, then, and make apologies where necessary. You look awful, Ren, you should take a few days off.'

He did. His apartment felt very empty when he was taking time off, maybe only because he wasn't sleeping, working on a character, or spending time with Kyoko. He didn't have many memories of the place, outside of his work and her, and to be at home with none of that left him feeling a little bereft.

He turned the television on, saw a promo for their film, and turned it off again before he could see the eye-catches of her hand touching his gently. That alone would undo him. He was destroyed as an actor by her, unable to work what... ninety percent or so of all the jobs he'd done and was generally offered. No romance ever again. No kissing another woman ever again, and not because he had finally caught her eye, but because she was a better actress and a better person, and...

As despair began rising in waves from what felt like the very depths of his gut, the core of himself, there was the sound of a key in the front door. Kyoko came in, letting light in from outside. Ren realised that the sun had set sometime without his noticing, and the apartment was in fact very dark.

'Ren? Ren are you all right?'

She was at his side in a moment, eyes worried and mouth pinched into a frown as she checked his forehead for a fever.

'You're not sick again, are you? Yashiro said you won't do the next film with me.'

Ren brushed her hand away with a frown. 'I don't get sick, you know that.'

'What I know is that you don't admit you're sick, and then you sulk alone. Yashiro said you were taking time off, and now you're sulking in the dark. It doesn't take a genius to think you might be sick.'

He opened his mouth to say that she wasn't a genius, but she really was. She was good at what she did, and good at being a friend – his best friend – and she really deserved better than him.

'Anyway, you don't have a fever. Not sick, I guess. So why aren't you doing any romances anymore? Kecchi is wondering why you don't want to work with me again.'

Kecchi. Right. That was the silly nickname of the director from their film together. 'I've been having trouble doing any romantic scenes recently. I needed to take some time out, that's all.'

'Hmm. That's strange. Is it exhaustion, or something specific?'

There was something about her tone of voice that had Ren thinking for some reason about chickens. Maybe he _was_ coming down with something? He answered without thinking, and immediately wished he hadn't. 'Just since working with you. I don't think I've ever met my match in that sort of scene before. It's unsettled me. I feel like my skills are slipping, I'm losing control.'

Instead of being shocked or taking his confession with solidarity and sympathy, Kyoko laughed. She laughed at him. At him, she laughed. He felt taken aback at her reaction, and it must have showed on his face even in the low light, because Kyoko stopped abruptly and attempted to regain her breath.

'And you don't know why it's different, when you're starring opposite anyone else?'

The way she smiled, and the way she said '_anyone else_' had something like suspicion and hope rising up in Ren's heart, making his head feel a little too full of something.

'It's the same reason that though I've done small scenes, I've never done a romantic lead role with anyone but you, and I'd never think of doing it with anyone other than you. It's because as practised as we are, nobody really gets _good_ at acting.'

She moved so that she was in his personal space, hands on his shoulders. The streetlights through the window reflected off the gemstone that hung from a chain around her neck – one of the many he'd given her over the years, one for each birthday, in varying secretive ways. There was a curving smile to her lips that reminded him of the final sweet scene of their film.

'Because they don't know who you really are. I do.'

And she whispered his name in his ear.


End file.
